Girlhood in Early African American Literature and Culture

FAIN: FT-60814-13

Nazera S. Wright
University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, KY 40506-0004)

A National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend will provide funding for travel to the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts to conduct archival research on the nation's first two black newspapers, Freedom's Journal (1827-1829) and The Colored American (1836-1842) for the completion of the first chapter of my book manuscript, titled Reconstructing Girlhood: Reading the Girl in Early African American Literature. My manuscript uncovers the impact of the black girl as a powerful political symbol of racial progress in the early black press, antebellum novels, autobiographies by black women, advice columns from black activists, and sketches and photographs from early black conduct books. This broad array of interdisciplinary texts that feature the black girl theorizes a literary tradition in which her recurring image functioned as both a reminder of societal inequities and a political weapon in African Americans' fight for full citizenship.

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